


Flesh is Weak, Blood is Cheap

by joiningtheliving (nomadicharmony)



Category: Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 15:03:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5670232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomadicharmony/pseuds/joiningtheliving
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Vampire AU) Knowing full well that vampirism has been outlawed by his father, Luigi still seeks to become one, and turns to a certain graverobber for help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flesh is Weak, Blood is Cheap

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: graphic depictions and discussions of violence, suicide mentions, major character death, blood, vomit, sexual content (not smut though), needle use, drug use, lots of sadness. and i mean, lots of sadness.

It was strange, strange and stranger still because it wasn’t unpleasant.

He was used to seeing a Largo beg, sharing his bed with a Largo, kissing a Largo with varying degrees of roughness, doing various other private things with a Largo, but not this Largo.

He wished he could tell somebody. He wished there was somebody to tell. Luigi Largo on his knees in front of a dirty graverobber, begging to be fucked hard. Luigi Largo screaming his name-- the real name, the one next to nobody knew-- and surprisingly enough, not in anger.

And all this because they were filthy fucking vampires.

\---

Ten years ago, Rotti Largo released an edict of sorts, claiming that vampirism was an “abomination,” and decreeing that it was illegal. Any vampires caught practicing their lifestyle would be imprisoned and presumably tortured, and any human caught aiding and abetting vampires by providing them with blood, operating on them, or treating them in the clinics would be punished on a sliding scale depending on the severity of the crime.

Either Rotti was an idiot or had an ulterior motive, because this dramatic outburst made the vampire community trendy. Fetishists would party underground with blood-sucking freaks, eventually find a sire, and join the fray themselves. The poorer parts of the city were soon replete with the undead, which created a shortage of blood, a sharp spike in murder, and a lot of other strangeness to boot. Blood dealers became prominent in the same parts of town where graverobbers made their rounds, the two professions often overlapping. Certain repo men, in a silent show of rebellion to their tyrannical employer, would themselves peddle the blood of their kills to augment their sometimes-meager pay, causing the darker and more dangerous parts of the city to bustle with activity at all hours of the day and night.

It was a part of town that Luigi tried to avoid, despite his morbid fascination with it, until one day the flame burned too bright, and the moth was no longer able to resist. 

\---

Luigi had come to him on a rainy night in January and demanded that he change him.

It was always fucking January.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re asking for,” had been his terse reply.

“I’m already a bloodthirsty asshole, what could go wrong?”

The graverobber didn’t have much of an answer for that, considering it was true. He had lived almost twice as long as the eldest Largo and had only killed three times. Everyone had lost count of how many lives that he had taken.

“Trust me, even if killing is your fucking hobby, you don’t want this,” he snarled. “And besides, how the  _ hell _ did you find out?”

“Let’s just say that, even though it must be nice having the Repo Man on your side, it’s still me he has to answer to.”

“You? Not your father?”

“Well, I’m keeping that information from my father, for my own purposes.” Luigi held his shoulders back defensively.

The dark-haired man stood back for a second, surveying his face. He had seen this type before. People who wanted to be vampires so badly that they lived as them.

“You drink it,” he whispered. “You fucking drink blood already, you greedy fucking  _ asshole.”  _

With this, Graves grabbed the taller man and slammed him into the shabby apartment wall, his anger overwhelming him.

“You’re more selfish than your fucking sister! To you, this is a fucking hobby, but to us, that’s  _ food!  _ There are plenty of us on the streets, starving but unable to die, and you’re taking from us for a fucking  _ fashion statement _ ! You selfish fucking  _ prick!” _

The other man was not as defensive or angry as he had hoped. When he replied, his voice was level, and he didn’t break eye contact. “Then punish me. Make me need it.”

Graves released his ascot, and turned away, crossing the small studio apartment to put some distance between them. “You’re terrible. I’m ashamed enough of what I am, but I don’t want bloodsuckers like you in this fucking city.”

“Please, Graverobber…”

“No.”

“I’ll pay you.”

“Tempting, but no. I make enough money off Amber.”

“I’ll do anything.”

The graverobber hadn’t moved, but Luigi had crossed the room. Now his hand rested on his shoulder. Not in the firm, aggressive way that he had expected, but in a pleading manner. 

“Please,” he said once more. The desperation made his voice crack.

“I’ll do it.”

“For how much money.”

“None. Just to get you off my ass.”

“The hell does that mean?” Luigi barked.

“Simple,” he answered. “I turn you into a vampire, you never speak to me again. That’s the fucking deal, you prick.”

\---

There were other vampires that could have done this for him, Dominic was right about that.

But Luigi had chosen him.

Amber, who trusted nobody, trusted that one.

Did Amber know he was a vampire? Probably not. Luigi had found out by accident. But that didn’t matter.

_ I am a bloodthirsty bastard. I want to become a vampire. I want that graverobber to make me a vampire. Nothing weird about that, right? _

\--

“Lay down. You’ll feel weird for a while when it happens, it’ll probably be best if you crash here. I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

Luigi looked as if there was something he wanted to say, for once something that wasn’t unkind, but he stopped himself.

He pulled his hair back into a ponytail, tired of the way it felt against his neck. Shuffling aside socks in the top drawer, he found the sharpest, easiest knife and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“What’s that for?” the Largo demanded suspiciously.

“It’s for the cuts.”

“Don’t you have teeth for that?”

“Do you want a bite mark, you fucking weirdo?”

“I do. I want my scar. Not on my neck, obviously, but someplace my dad and siblings won’t see… I know.” Luigi rolled up his shirt sleeve and offered his right forearm to the vampire.

Begrudgingly, he took the arm in his hands and held it in front of himself.

“You sure you’re ready?” he pressed.

The eldest Largo closed his eyes. “Get the fuck on with it before I change my mind.”

He let out a strange sort of gasp when his teeth broke the skin. It was familiar and he couldn’t place it at first. As he drank, deeply, enjoying the strangely savory blood, it hit him. It was the noise Amber made when he pinched her nipples. 

_ Of fucking course. The pervert has a goddamn vampire fetish. If I wasn’t so busy fulfilling his goddamn fantasy, I’d be kinkshaming his sorry ass in the blink of a fucking eye. Amd why me? Almost all the girls on this street are vampires now. Any of them would be glad to do all this and fuck him for a shot of Z. Makes no fucking sense. _

He stopped drinking when it felt right. Luigi’s lids were heavy over his eyes and he looked oddly content.

“Give me,” he whimpered. He sounded like he was high-- was this normal? 

“I’m fucking working on it.” Deciding to forego the knife, the graverobber bit the end of his right pinkie finger, hard enough to make it bleed, and traced it over Luigi’s lips. Softer than they looked. “Open up.”

Obediently, Luigi let his jaw fall in the slightest motion, and when he slipped his finger into his mouth, he sucked it like someone sucking their first dick. He took the blood with vigor for about a minute, before his jaw went slack, and his breathing shallow. There it was. He would sleep soon, hopefully, that would make it easier. And when he woke up, he’d have what he wanted. The newness would be gone and he’d finally be a fucking vampire.

\---

Amber snuck him into her high-rise late at night. It was sad, really. They didn’t live with their father anymore and they still had to sneak when they wanted guests over.

Luigi would recline on her couch with a bottle of wine, and she would steal the man into her apartment, giggling and kissing and feeling each other up. He had learned quickly to go home or to take a walk once the graverobber arrived, because it wouldn’t be long before the bedroom door would close and he’d start hearing the giggles and the sighs that meant very particular things were happening. He started bringing his good headphones on nights he visited Amber. That made it more bearable on evenings he was too lazy to take a walk. Besides, Amber never noticed when he shot up some Z in her absence.

One night, the man got there before Amber was back from her concert or what-have-you. Luigi was there, too, unwilling to return to the emptiness of his own apartment.

He offered to leave until she was back, but Luigi insisted that he stay. They made small-talk and did some glow together, and as Luigi looked at the side of his face in the dim lights of Amber’s den of iniquity, he noticed a beauty in the chiseled jawline and the tired blue eyes of the androgynous man who sat beside him. His eyeliner was starting to smudge, and it gave him the look of one of the supposedly avant-garde fashion models of ages past. The grungy look wasn’t Luigi’s preferred aesthetic, but it looked good on this mysterious man who was fucking his sister. And good-looking men had become sparse in this part of town these days.

\---

One day, their paths crossed as Luigi was returning from a repossession.

He was selling Z, of course. But when a haggard-looking teenager approached him with a wad of cash, Luigi saw him pull a different vial from his jacket pocket--a red one. The teen took it from him greedily and drank it as they walked away, tossing the vial into a dumpster.

Luigi had taken his helmet off, but hastily put it back on when the graverobber’s gaze rose, threatening to meet his own. He watched the man hastily take a sip of blood himself from a plastic water bottle before retreating further into the maze of the inner city, and Luigi felt his heart begin to beat faster. Here was a real opportunity.

\---

“Stay in bed with me,” the fledgling vampire had insisted when he’d tried to get up. He’d sat back down, but Luigi had whined that he wanted him to lay down, that he was cold, and that was how he ended up lying across his bed with Luigi Largo’s head on his chest and his arms wound around him. 

“Talk to me, dammit,” he whimpered weakly. “Tell me things.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What’s your real name?” Luigi’s hand was exploring his arm now.  _ What’s so great about it? It’s an arm. You’ve seen those before, I presume. _

“Do you want the one on my birth certificate or the one I actually like?”

“I didn’t know they were different.”

“Well, you don’t know anything about me,” he reminded the man.

“Right. Well, tell me the one you like.”

“Dominic,” he answered. 

“Does my sister call you that?”

“When we’re alone.”

“Can I call you that?”

“When we’re alone.”

“I thought you never wanted to see me again.”

“I don’t. When do I ever get what I want, though?” Dominic’s laugh was bitter and harsh.

“I can leave you alone after this, if that’s what you want.” Luigi sounded pitiful, and despite how awful he was, somehow he still felt pity for this man. He was lonely, and being a vampire, he was about to get a whole lot lonelier.

“We’ll worry about that later. Go to sleep.” Dominic petted his hair in a slow, steady pattern. “Go to sleep.”

\---

Luigi was asleep within twenty minutes, and Dominic drew the curtains closed around his bed. He left the blinds open, so he could watch the rain in case sleep didn’t come quickly, but it did that night. Having a source of warmth next to him tended to help with that.

He and Luigi awoke simultaneously the next morning. One of them must have shifted in sleep, jostling the other one and bringing them both back to consciousness.

He kept expecting Luigi’s usual bitterness, sarcasm, threats. But he got none of that.

For God’s sake, the first thing the man did was kiss him.

It was startling, but not bad. His lips were smooth without being uncomfortably soft.

“You really do have a vampire fetish,” Dominic had muttered, almost inaudibly.

“Kinkshame me, I fucking dare you,” the other man mumbled between lazy cheek and neck kisses.

“I mean, it’s surprisingly common, honestly. Around here, anyway. Most men turn to girl vampires to get their kicks, though.”

When Luigi kissed his lips this time, he kissed back, albeit tiredly. He hoped the man didn’t seriously want to fool around just yet; he needed time to wake up first.

“I’m sure the girl vampires around here are very pretty, but I think you’re very handsome.”

Dominic held back a laugh. “You’re just into me because I’m your sire.”

“Wait, so you can tell I’m into you?” Luigi looked absolutely deflated.

“You just kissed me, dumbass! More than once!”

Luigi drew him in for kisses, and instantly Dominic could feel how serious the other man was about this. 

This was getting downright weird, and bringing back memories that had long since been buried, but he went with it, becoming more and more aroused himself as Luigi’s lips began to trail down his neck and onto his collarbone.

_ What does it matter what you do when you’re never going to die? _

          ---

Luigi stopped kissing him when he felt the man tense up under him.

“We don’t have to,” he reminded him, slowly, letting his eyes run over his face in hopes of reading him. “Cuddling is great, we can just keep doing that.”

“I want to, I want to,” Dominic reassured him between kisses. “I want to. Just give me a minute to work up to it.”

“Have you been with a man before?” Luigi asked, brushing back his hair lightly.

“Yeah, plenty of times. That’s not the issue?”

“Do you want to talk about what the issue is?”

Silently, Dominic sat up and removed his shirt. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”

Luigi wasn’t sure what he was looking at at first. His eyes surveyed Dominic’s flat, hairless chest, looking for anything out of place.  _ Okay, um… he’s a little skinny but I’d be a hypocrite to say anything about that. I like the nipple piercings, that’s kind of hot--- oh. _

He saw the scars, but still didn’t get it.

“So you’ve had a surgery or two. Big deal. I’ve got scars, too. See?” Luigi took off his own shirt, and Dominic sighed heavily. Wordlessly, he took off his pants, and then his boxers. And that was when Luigi realized.

The man wouldn’t look at him. He sat on the bed, totally naked, with scars on his chest and his legs open. Luigi stared for a moment, completely taken aback, before crawling across the bed to kiss the side of his face.

The other man’s cheeks flushed. “You’d better not act like I’m a woman after this.”

“Why would I?”

“You wouldn’t be the first.” Dominic still refused to look at him.

Luigi took his face in his hands and gently prompted him to turn towards him. Tentatively, Dominic followed his hands and looked up into the other man’s eyes. He kissed his forehead, and made a soft path of smooches down the side of his angular face, stopping at his ear just long enough to whisper, “Show me what kind of man you are.”

Dominic’s black-painted lips twisted into that smirk that drove everyone he knew crazy, and he shoved Luigi down onto the bed.

\---

_ Pray he never comes knocking at your door... _

“Is it a rule?” Nathan asked, coming to drop off the new supply. “Does every vampire fuck their sire?”

“I don’t know. I did, now he has.”

“And he picked you.” Nathan’s smile was smug. “Those damn kids fighting over a graverobber? Daddy would be  _ so  _ proud.”

“Fuck off, Nathan.” Dominic didn’t want to think about how Amber would feel if she knew what had happened. How Nathan knew, he still wasn’t sure, but he supposed that didn’t matter. “Give me the goddamn blood.”

The Repo Man pulled three Mason jars from his bag and handed them, one by one, to the graverobber.  “Some of it’s diluted. There was a bathtub suicide, I didn’t know how desperate you people were.”

Dominic pursed his lips, surveying one of the jars. He knew it looked too thin. “Could be used for cooking, maybe. Looks too shitty to drink but someone could make ramen with it.”

“I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.” The doctor looked sincerely concerned, taking the vampire by surprise. “Vampirism is an unfortunate epidemic in the city these days. It seems like blood is harder to get ahold of than Zydrate.”

“It is. You can get good Z from any old corpse, but bad blood is everywhere.” Dominic looked at the other two jars to determine their quality. “This will be good, though. I should make a few bucks off of these. And I do have other sources of blood, so it’s not like this is all I have...” He paused. “And you’re sure these bastards were clean?”

“I have their medical files with me now if you’d like to check for yourself.”

He did check. He made Nathan coffee while he shuffled through the files, peering through his reading glasses to make sure there were no communicable diseases in any of the patients’ histories. 

Once satisfied, he closed them neatly, and handed them back to the repossessor. 

“When’s your next call?” 

“Midnight. Hopefully my daughter will actually go to bed at a decent hour tonight, and she won’t hear me sneaking out…”

“You have a daughter?”

Nathan smiled bitterly. “Yes. She just turned eighteen. With every birthday, she threatens independence, but she’s very ill. She might die without assistance, so I’ve talked her into continuing to live with me.”

_ That sounds like an awful life.  _ Dominic smiled and nodded along anyway. “Well, best of luck. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Nathan agreed, shaking his hand like an old man before departing.

\---

Nathan pitied him, when he found out. It wasn't so much that he found out as inferred. But one day, he told him the secrets to harvesting blood from his kills.

“Why are you telling me this?” Luigi interrupted him.

“So you can eat, dumbass.”

Luigi looked at him quizzically.

“You used to do nothing but talk about vampires, now you've stopped. I can assume that means you got your wish.”

The younger man fell silent.

“And I suspect I know who did it, but that's none of my business. Regardless, if you do what I told you, you can eat, and perhaps your lover boy can make a little money off the extra.”

“He’s Amber’s lover boy, not mine.”

Nathan’s eyes narrowed. “And what does that make him to you?”

“I don’t know. My sire, technically. My friend.”

The older man nodded silently, and handed him a Mason jar full of the stuff. “If you go over there today, bring this to him. I don’t have the energy to go traipsing through that part of town today.”

“I know you’re technically my boss, but I thought I was more than an errand boy,” Luigi pouted.

“This,” Nathan answered, tapping the jar, “is a decidedly extracurricular activity.”

He left without saying more on the subject, and rather than feeling like he understood Dr. Wallace more, the man seemed like more of an enigma.

He thought about stopping him and asking more questions, but instead he let the other man make his exit. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know where he got all this information, anyway.

\---

“Why does he do it? Bring you blood, I mean.” Luigi asked one night, playing with Dominic’s long hair as they split one of the small Zydrate vials he kept the blood in.

“To piss off your dad,” Dominic answered simply, taking the last sip before throwing the little glass vial and letting it break against the wall. He sat up to pull the curtains shut again, after stripping down to his boxers.

“Do you make a lot of money selling Z?” the Largo murmured, taking off his own clothes and tossing them between the gap in the translucent black drapes, reaching for the pajamas he’d started keeping here instead.

“I used to. Make a lot more selling blood now. Why do you ask?”

“I’m just confused. You live in a tiny one-room, one-bath apartment in the worst part of town, but you have a lot of nice things.”

“Well, one, I don’t like having too much open space around me. Sensory thing, I don’t know. Two, I live in this part of town because this is where my clients live. Three, some of this stuff was a gift anyway.”

His thoughts drifted to the ever-changing woman who teasingly called herself his “sugar mama,” who’d picked out the curtains and the satin sheets on the bed. It was unclear how much of it was as payment for the glow and how much of it was out of affection for him. She put on an act when they were in public, as she should, but when they were alone, they spent a great deal of time just laying in this bed, listening to music at a quiet volume, holding hands like schoolkids and talking about nothing in particular. 

Luigi knew who he was referring to but didn’t seem to want to acknowledge the matter further. He pulled the t-shirt over his head and laying on his back with skinny legs in the air, pulled his loose pajama pants on as well before climbing onto the covers.

“A little really goes a long way with blood,” he mused. “I thought I’d be hungrier than this.”

“It’s not always so bad,” Dominic agreed, settling in onto a pillow. “But when it’s bad, it’s the worst imaginable.”

“Have you ever thought about killing yourself?” Luigi asked. He wasn’t meeting his gaze, clearly this was a sensitive subject for him in particular.

“It’s hard killing a vampire. Humans are resilient creatures, but us even more so.”

“What does kill us?” Luigi asked.

“Not a lot. We pretty much have to get blown apart, get poisoned, or make ourselves bleed out somehow. Even then, killing ourselves doesn’t work most of the time. Something in our bodies doesn’t want to die, no matter how badly we do. It decides when we go, without our permission or our input.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Still want to die.”

Dominic shook his head. “Not anymore.”

“Good. I want you to stay with me,” Luigi mumbled.

Dominic couldn’t help but kiss him, just once, so gently that the other man could barely feel it. “Stop being a fucking sap. It’s disgusting,” he murmured, before pressing another poorly-aimed kiss into the corner of his mouth. “Go to sleep.”

\---

“Dom…”

“Don’t call me Dom. Please.”  _ And don’t ask why. _

“That’s what she calls you?”

“She?”

“My sister.”

“No, not your sister. Someone else.”

\---

“I love you,” Luigi mumbled late one night after they shot up and guzzled some of the unsold blood.

“No, you don’t.”

\---

“Was it your sire?”

“Yes.”

“What was her name?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember or you don’t want to talk about it?”

“Both.”

“Whatever.” Luigi rolled over and went back to sleep.

\---

“You know, I could get you bottom surgery if you wanted it,” Luigi murmured one night as they were cuddled close, noses together and hands exploring shoulder-blades and spines.

“Nah. Amber and I almost got busted last time I went under the knife. Better not to risk it again unless my life’s in danger. Besides, I’m finally okay with my body the way it is.” Dominic kissed him in the soft place between his neck and shoulder. “Your sister seems to think I’m the hottest guy on earth, and I’d be lying if I said that didn’t do wonders for my self-perception.”

Luigi chose to ignore the part about Amber. “I think you’re the hottest guy ever.”

“I think you’re a fucking sap.” Dominic rolled over, and settled in to prepare himself to sleep.

\---

Luigi thought a million times about telling his sister. That he was a vampire. That he was fucking her vampire. But he couldn’t.

They weren’t exclusive by any means. Everyone knew how often Amber fucked her bodyguards, for fuck’s sake. They could never lay claim to each other, or Dad would have the asses of everyone involved, but there was something in the way they traded glances when they were together that reminded him who Dominic really wanted to be sleeping beside every night.

\---

Luigi watched one day as Dominic organized the Zydrate vials he was going to peddle the next day.

“Nathan says there’s a link between addictive substances and vampirism.”

The dealer tried to resist the urge to laugh bitterly, but he found himself unable. “Yeah, Nathan sure thinks he knows a lot about us.”

“He says that, historically, there’s been a great amount of vampires who have turned to hard drugs, even going so far back as Elizabeth Bathory.”

Dominic didn’t answer, and polished one of the vials that was smudged by fingerprints.

“Is that true?”

“Elizabeth Bathory wasn’t a fucking vampire. But yes. A lot of vampires used drugs.” Dominic looked briefly up at the tall man who was lounging across his bed, before resuming his work.

“Why?”

“It makes you less hungry.”

“Did you always use drugs?”

“Yes. Before Z, it was heroin. It’s pretty much obsolete now, harder to get than this shit. Besides, Z is better.”

“Who turned you on to heroin?”

“I had a human friend, her name was Amanda. She kind of disappeared on me after a while, but that happens. You live longer than everyone else you value.”

Luigi looked down at the floor, and watched his face drop. “I’d probably have lived longer than those two dumbasses, anyway.”

“Yeah. Knowing them, it’s possible.” Dominic had thought a thousand times about refusing to sell to her, and he’d actually gotten so far as to try to refuse her several times. But the way she’d cry, the way she’d beg, was too much for even his hardened heart to resist.

Or maybe he was just soft with regards to her.

Besides, the Z wasn’t going to kill her, it would be a botched surgery. The blood wouldn’t be on his hands if she died. That’s what he kept telling himself, and while he was certain of the first part, the second part still didn’t feel true.

\---

He should have fucking known.

He should have known.

A young woman selling her blood for money, trying to get away from home, trying to get away from her  _ father _ .

That little fucking liar, she said she was clean...

He’d been throwing up for forty-five minutes-- throwing up blood because it was all that was in his stomach.

This wasn’t a fucking blood disease. 

\---

“What happens if you drink the blood of someone who’s sick? Like, with a blood disease?” 

“Sometimes nothing. Sometimes you die. Sometimes you suffer for ages without dying. It’s a gamble only the most desperate of us take, and I’d like to think I’ll never be that desperate.”

\---

Amber came over for the first night in two weeks; she’d been busy in a recording studio. 

She was crying when he came to, but that wasn’t so unreasonable when he realized she’d found him asleep on the bathroom floor with blood all over his face.

She’d gotten in the shower with him, and cleaned him up, kissing him while she washed his hair. 

“You don’t have to act like I’m a fucking child,” he snarled while she dug through his dresser to find something comfortable for him to wear.

“Well, you’re clearly doing a great job of taking care of yourself,” she reminded him through more tears, buttoning a loose pajama shirt around him and tossing the matching pants into his lap. “This is my fault, I haven’t been here in so long.”

He got up to put the pants on, and after he did, pulled her gently shaking form into his arms. “Amber. It’s not your fault.”

Her face folded into his chest and she clutched his too-thin waist tightly. “What happened?”

“I got some bad blood, that’s all.”

She pulled back and there was panic in her wide eyes. They were green this week. “What the hell, Dominic? Where did you find bad blood?”

“It wasn’t normal, though. I… I think she was poisoned. I’ve never puked like that in my fucking life.”

“She who? Who was it?” Amber grabbed his face and pulled it down towards her. “Whose blood was it?”

\---

He didn’t ask the girl’s name.

He insisted on calling her “kid,” which pissed her off.

“I’m eighteen years old, for fuck’s sake. I’m not a fucking kid,” she’d told him.

“Whatever, kid.”

He took four small vials from her forearm with the gun. It looked beautiful. He knew he’d be able to pawn it for four, maybe five times what she was charging him. 

But for his dumb ass, that wasn’t enough. He wanted a taste so badly, and he still hadn’t taken enough to hurt her…

He looked up, meeting her gaze for the first time during this sordid transaction, and there seemed to be an understanding in her huge brown eyes. This young woman knew what it was like to need something.

She pulled her blouse off her left shoulder. “The neck’s a little stereotypical, even I’ll admit, but I don’t want marks on my arms. How about here?”

He nodded silently, leaned over her, and bit as gently as he could.

\---

“She’s dead, you know.”

Dominic was startled out of his sick slumber. Had Luigi been there the whole time? He didn’t know. His head burned but his hands were cold. He already wanted to go back to sleep.

“What?”

“That girl. Who gave you the blood.” Luigi sat down at the foot of the couch, and rubbed his leg absently. “I don’t think it was you. But it was somebody. You said you bought four vials off her?”

“Four vials and what I had myself. Why?” Dominic’s eyes already didn’t want to stay open.

“Just as I thought. Someone mugged her for it. She had been bitten up, and there was no money on her when the cops found her. Probably a small group of desperate vamps. Odds are, they’re barfing their souls up like you.”

“Serves them right.”

Luigi exhaled sharply. “For the first time in my life, I feel bad for Nathan.”

Dominic was startled into alertness. “Nathan?”

“That was his girl. Shilo. Only eighteen.” Luigi looked down at the floor and Dominic saw tears in his eyes. “Amber kind of looked like her at that age. Seeing her on the embalming table felt like looking into a crystal ball at some fucked-up version of the past where my sister made it out of this world before things started to go to hell, you know what I mean?”

Dominic sat up to comfort him, but the sudden movement brought back the nausea. Luigi carried him to the bathroom and held his hair.

\---

Most nights when they fucked, it was furious. Loud and approaching anger. That night, it was slow and pensive and drawn out.

It felt like goodbye sex.

Dominic on top of him, head rolled back, groaning deeply and sighing with every orgasm that shook his thin frame. The glow made him come easier, made him feel less sick. It also made Luigi last longer for him. But the glow made Luigi say things he shouldn't, made him talk about a future that couldn't exist for them.

Wouldn’t, even if it could.

\---

Four days passed before he realized he would die with no medical attention. There was still a strict ban on treating vampires in all the clinics, so Dominic tried calling Nathan, and to no avail.

He fell asleep, trying not to think about how badly he felt, and awoke to Amber in his bed, sobbing, clutching his shirt and breathing heavily.

“Amber? Baby, what's wrong?” He pulled her in and she folded her arms around his neck tightly.

“Nathan’s dead. He killed himself.”

_ That would explain it, I suppose. _

“And his dumb ass put his hands in big mason jars after he slit his wrists, left a note for my dad saying he's been helping the vampires and his daughter was poisoned and all this nonsense about his late wife and Mag--”

“Wait, back up a second. The kid was poisoned?”

Amber drew back to look at his face. The tears had momentarily stopped, but they looked as if they were coming back full force in a moment. “It was her, wasn't it?”

“Well, obviously I didn't know it at the time, but yes.”

She looked away bitterly.

“What is this about poison? Tell me. I think I deserve to know since I've been puking up her blood for days.”

“I don't even know the whole story. Something about my dad killed Nathan’s wife while she was pregnant with the kid, and Nathan managed to save the girl but this medicine he has had her on all of her life has been poisoning her, something about that being my dad’s fault too…”

“Bottom line is, I'm probably gonna die.”

She looked at him through tear-filled eyes. “Yes. And thanks to Nathan’s final stunt, there’s no chance of me sneaking you in anywhere to get treatment. If my dad wasn't such a pissant…”

Dominic kissed her slowly, sweetly. “Lots of things might be different for us if your dad wasn't such a pissant.”

“No point dwelling on any of that now. Not anymore.” She kissed him back, and let her hands and lips drift down his gaunt body. “Relax for a minute. Let me take care of you.”

\---

The next day, Dominic wrote out one final letter to Amber, and one to Luigi.

By this time, he was ready. Ready, and even eager.

\---

“Amber wants to stay with you your last couple nights,” Luigi told him over the phone. “I just wanted to tell you goodbye.”

Dominic felt his eyes start to water, and took a deep breath, trying to silence his tears. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. The only thing you did wrong was what I told you to do.”

_ I knew you’d regret it. You dumb, adorable, vampire-loving fuck… _

“I didn’t want to abandon you the way I got abandoned. That was never my intention--”

“None of this was your intention. But look. I’m the head Repo Man now. I’m gonna make it better for our kind, no matter what.” Luigi stopped, to hold back a sob. “Where do you want to be buried?”

“Don’t. I don’t want them stealing glow from my corpse one day.”  _ What a sick turn of fate that would be.  _ “Cremate me. The two of you can go scatter my ashes someplace pretty.”

“Does she know?”

“She will. I wrote her a letter. I left out the more salacious parts, no reason for her to know all that, but she’ll understand. I wrote you one, too.”

“You sound like a ghost.”

“I am one now.”

\---

“Was it awful?” Luigi asked, as they walked hand in hand to the tiny beach outside the city.

“No. He passed in his sleep. I woke up and he was cold. He looked happy.”

He held the jar in his hand. It was one of the jars Nathan used to use, it looked like there was still a little blood in the bottom. He wouldn’t mind.

“Do you need help cleaning out the apartment?” he asked.

“No, I got rid of everything already. Left some of the furniture there for whoever moves in next. The sheets were so bloodstained from the last few days I had to throw them out.” Amber looked away for a moment to compose herself, eyeing the ominous blue lights of the now-distant city, like a Zydrate-fueled lighthouse in the murky night. “I kept some of the nicer things that I bought him. For memories. I can’t look at them without crying, but I’d hate myself if I got rid of them.”

He nodded silently. He had taken a couple things himself, when things started going south-- a favorite shirt of Dominic’s, a necklace he wore some days but wasn’t incredibly fond of, a few of the empty spare vials. “Did you get the gun?”

Amber pulled it from her purse quietly, a full vial of Z still loaded into it. “I have my own syringes. I thought it should go with him.”

“Agreed,” Luigi nodded.

He poured the ashes. She threw the gun.

Amber hummed a soft tune under her breath as the gun floated away and the ash became one with the water.

She heard his stomach rumble and she silently handed him one of the small vials of blood she carried in her purse.

He gulped it down appreciatively, and turned to her as if to thank her, but she had wordlessly sunk to her knees in the soft sand, crumpling like a child. Her face was hidden in her black-gloved hands, and her thin shoulders were heaving with silent sobs.

He sat down beside her and held her tight, tucking her head under his chin so she wouldn’t be able to see his own tears.

\---

_ Luigi,  _

__ _ I don’t know what to say to you. You know I’m not good at communicating, so I hope you will forgive me if I’m not as sentimental as a dying bloodsucker should be. _

__ _ I can’t say with honesty you made me happy. I wish I could, but I haven’t been happy since I was human, and even then, happiness left as quickly as it came. But I want you to know that you made the empty space bearable. I should never have let you persuade me to change you, but having someone beside me who truly understood what this hunger feels like made things better. _

__ _ I can’t help but feel like I owe you something. I know firsthand what it feels like to enter this life by someone else’s hand, to form an attachment to them unlike any human bond you ever experienced, and then watch them die. But I have so little to give; besides, what can I give to a man who by all standards has everything? _

__ _ Please take care of your sister. I love her more than I’ve loved anyone in fifty years or more, and I am scared for her. I left her the last of my Zydrate, and you the last of my blood. The last bit of money I have to my name is in an envelope on the kitchen table; Amber will probably be here next so I’ll give it to her. Split it down the middle. I don’t care what you use the money for, but for my sake, don’t let Amber buy any more glow. Be tougher on her than I was. _

__ _ Know that I cared very deeply for you. I was shit at showing it, but you were one of my favorite people on Earth. I’m sorry I couldn’t feel the way you wanted me to, but I did my best. _

__ _ Yours truly,  _

__ _ Dominic _

_ PS: Put flowers on the Wallaces’ graves for me. Tell them I’m sorry. _

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! reviews are always welcome!


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